Presents information on the subject of crime, discussing the causes of crime and crime-prevention techniques, the appropriate punishment for certain crimes, and explains the legal system and different levels of law enforcement.

What is meant by crime, crime prevention and crime control? Who defines the acts which are deemed as criminal? Who devises the sanctions and who acts as agents of social control? This timely and challenging book brings together a group of leading international criminologists from all sides of the political spectrum. They first examine the formation and implementation of official crime prevention and control policies. In the second part they look at a range of critical perspectives which explore the definition of crime and discuss proposals for its prevention and control.

How can a society prevent-not deter, not punish-but prevent crime? Criminal justice prevention, commonly called crime control, aims to prevent crime after an initial offence has been commited through anything from an arrest to a death penalty sentence. These traditional means have been frequently examined and their efficacy just as frequently questioned. Promising new forms of crime prevention have emerged and expanded as important components of an overall strategy to reduce crime. Crime prevention today has developed along three lines: interventions to improve the life chances of children and prevent them from embarking on a life of crime; programs and policies designed to ameliorate the social conditions and institutions that influence offending; and the modification or manipulation of the physical environment, products, or systems to reduce everyday opportunities for crime. Each strategy aims at preventing crime or criminal offending in the first instance - before the act has been committed. Each, importantly, takes place outside of the formal criminal justice system, representing an alternative, perhaps even socially progressive way to reduce crime. The Oxford Handbook of Crime Prevention is a comprehensive, up-to-date, and authoritative review of research on crime prevention. Bringing together top scholars in criminology, public policy, psychology, and sociology, this Handbook includes critical reviews of the main theories that form the basis of crime prevention, evidence-based assessments of the effectiveness of the most important interventions, and cross-cutting essays that examine implementation, evaluation methodology, and public policy. Covering the three major crime prevention strategies active today-developmental, community, and situational-this definitive volume addresses seriously and critically the ways in which the United States and the Western world have attempted, and should continue to strive for the of crime.

Analysing the historical circumstances and theoretical sources that have generated ideas about citizen and community participation in crime control, this book examines the various ideals, outcomes and effects that citizen participation has been held to stimulate and how these have been transformed, renegotiated and reinvigorated over time.

Under the American federal system, most law is cast as state statutes and local ordinances; accordingly, most law enforcement is the responsibility of state and local agencies. Federal law and federal law enforcement come into play only where there is rationale for it, consistent with the Constitution. Within this framework, a clear role has been identified for federal support of state and local agencies. This report provides findings of a study of technology in use or needed by law enforcement agencies at the state and local level, for the purpose of informing federal policymakers as they consider technology-related support for these agencies. In addition, it seeks to characterize the obstacles that exist to technology adoption by law enforcement agencies and to characterize the perceived effects of federal assistance programs intended to facilitate the process. The study findings are based on a nationwide Law Enforcement Technology Survey and a similar Forensics Technology Survey (FTS) conducted in late spring and early summer2000, interviews conducted throughout the year, focus groups conducted in autumn 2000, and review of an extensive, largely nonacademic literature. Companion reports: Schwabe, William, Needs and Prospects for Crime-Fighting Technology: The Federal Role in Assisting State and Local Law Enforcement, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 1999. Davis, Lois M., William Schwabe, and Ronald Fricker, Challenges and Choices for Crime-Fighting Technology: Results from Two Nationwide Surveys, Santa Monica, Calif.: RAND, 2001.

Crime Control As Industry, translated into many languages, is a modern classic of criminology and sociology. Nils Christie, one of the leading criminologists of his era, argues that crime control, rather than crime itself is the real danger for our future. Prison populations, especially in Russia and America, have grown at an increasingly rapid rate and show no signs of slowing. Christie argues that this vast and growing population is the equivalent of a modern gulag, run by a rapacious industry, both public and private, with vested interests in incarceration. Pain and confinement are products, like any other, with a potentially limitless supply of resources. Widely hailed as a classic account of crime and restorative justice Crime Control As Industry's prophetic insights and proposed solutions are essential reading for anyone interested in crime and the global penal system. This Routledge Classics edition includes a new foreword by David Garland.